Niyamath Parveez

The start of the new football season always brings fans some excitement and one of the reasons for this is the fact that clubs have new signings and hopes for the year ahead. When a team wins the league, it is usually expected that they will have money to spend but for one champion, the financial status is looking extremely grim. Rangers managed to steal their first title in four years mainly due to their close rivals imploding because of poor management but there will be very few, if any, new signings to help the club defend their title. There have been many reasons for the high levels of debt experienced by Rangers, with lavish spending one of the most popular but the huge levels of outsourcing at the club is another. And it may be a surprise to some but the person who has benefited from this outsourcing tactic has been club owner David Murray.

Murray has stripped many of the assets and business prospects of the club and outsourced to other firms in his business empire, either owned by him or his family members. One of the best examples of this comes in the shape of Azure, who runs the catering services for the club. With over 40,000 fans at every home game, and the club being the only team advertising club strips for sale in sizes up to XXXXXL, there are likely to be many fans who like the odd half-time pie or three at a game. This would see the club making a lot of money each home game but as the catering services have been outsourced to Murray’s company, the profits are taken away from the club.

Traditionally, fans of Glasgow Rangers have never been the smartest football fans, perhaps related to the poor schooling they experience in Scotland but even now some of them are waking up to the fact that David Murray has been milking the club dry for the best part of the decade. The Scottish media have been fully behind the chairman as he led the club on a victorious charge through Scottish football in the 1990s and this has possibly hid some of his worst moments of excess. The club still struggled on the European stage but in an era when Scottish football was in the doldrums, Rangers managed to dominate. They equaled their rival’s Celtic’s achievement of winning nine domestic league titles but there is not much glory in doing something for the second time in history. The club stood on the brink of making history but their bid for 10 in a row was derailed by an ageing team and the re-emergence of a strong Celtic. This meant that for all of Rangers glory years and high spending levels, they failed to equal Celtics success in the European Cup and only equaled their domestic triumphs. And now, the club and its fans are feeling the sharp end of the outsourcing measures that has seen Murray take a vast amount of cash out of the club. The anger and rage of the clubs fans are starting to build and if the clubs are unable to withstand the threat from Celtic who is looking to regain their title, expect to see permarage outside Ibrox throughout the season.